African Muscle #2: West Africa

West African countries tend to have a higher population density and a higher GDP than East African
countries (though about the same level of homophobia), so we expect more gyms, more fitness, more muscle.

1. Benin, formerly Dahomey, is a long, narrow country on the Gulf of Guinea, known as the birthplace of Voudun (bowdlerized as voodoo) and revealing shorts.











2.  Over 30 languages are spoken in Togo, its neighbor to the east, home of this sweaty bodybuilder with great abs.






















3.  Revealing blue shorts in the Ivory Coast, the Côte d'Ivoire, a French colony until 1960.

















4. Another Ivory Coast bodybuilder.




















5. Liberia is the only West African country that was never a French or English colony.  It was founded by American ex-slaves and free blacks who wanted to return to their homeland.

More after the break
















6. This swimmer from Ghana is no bodybuilder, but he has a pleasant physique.






















7.  I like how this bodybuilder from Nigeria is posing, with his fist against his crotch.

















8. Burkina Faso was called Upper Volta until 1984. It's a very poor country, with frequent political strife, so many Burkinabe are expatriots.  Not this massive young bodybuilder who won't show us his gym trunks.














9.  A Senegalese fisherman.


















10. A Senegalese athlete who has been wrestling in the dirt.






















11. Sweaty from his workout in Mali